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With crackdown on panhandling, people wrestle with their conscience
Driving to his downtown clothing business, Hans Herman Thun finds it impossible to ignore the beggars. They catch his attention with handwritten, cardboard signs such as “Homeless and hungry,” “Anything helps! God bless” and even “I’ll be honest — I could really use a beer.”
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Begin Again
City Council majority strikes $1.5B Coliseum and Downtown development project, urging the administration to start over with public inclusion
Start over — and this time include the public. That’s the cry from the five members of Richmond City Council who followed through Monday night in eliminating the $1.5 billion Coliseum replacement and Downtown redevelopment plan, just as they said they would do when the nine-member governing body met last week as a committee.
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Frozen
RRHA puts hold on all public housing evictions through December, but residents are skeptical, concerned bigger issues are not being addressed
The Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority has frozen all evictions for the rest of the year, following months of growing scrutiny and backlash from residents and housing advocates over the organization’s actions and priorities.
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Fallout continues from college admissions scandal
Colleges and companies moved swiftly this week to distance themselves from employees swept up in a nationwide college admissions scheme, many of them coaches accused of taking bribes as well as prominent parents accused of angling to get their children into top schools by portraying them as recruited athletes.
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Gov. Northam appoints 'diversity czar,' boards in upholding promise after blackface scandal
Dr.Janice Underwood will be the state’s first “diversity czar.”
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Personality: Douglas Powell aka ‘Roscoe Burnems’
Spotlight on Richmond’s first poet laureate
Douglas Powell is many things — a poet, author and spoken word artist who performs under the alias Roscoe Burnems. He is a National Poetry Slam champion, a former TEDx speaker, a husband, father and teacher who has contributed to a number of creative endeavors in Richmond. And now, Mr. Powell has been selected to serve as the city’s first poet laureate.
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$10,000
Biden announces big student loan forgiveness plan
President Biden on Wednesday announced his long-awaited plan to deliver on a campaign promise to provide $10,000 in student debt cancellation for millions of Americans — and up to $10,000 more for those with the greatest financial need — along with new measures to lower the burden of repayment for their remaining federal student debt.
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Personality: Jer’Mykeal D. McCoy
Spotlight on president-elect of the Urban League of Greater Richmond Young Professionals
The Urban League of Greater Richmond Young Professionals has helped its members become entrepreneurs and homeowners, engage in the community’s civic affairs and enhance their careers and leadership abilities. Jer’Mykeal D. McCoy, the organization’s incoming president plans to continue that work and increase the number of members.
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‘Rethinking Incarceration’
Author on justice, race and Jesus as a prisoner
The problems in the United States’ criminal justice system go all the way back to slavery, according to Dominique DuBois Gilliard, who directs racial reconciliation work for the Evangelical Covenant Church. Both slavery and incarceration are means of racial and social control, said Mr. Gilliard, who sees these controls working together throughout American history — from Jim Crow to lynchings to the war on drugs to the privatization of prisons.
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Nearly 1,000 good reasons
Editorials
Some people claim there is no reason to enact tougher gun laws in the United States. We wholeheartedly disagree.
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No way equal
We cannot sit by without commenting on the announcement by the University of Richmond regarding its examination into possibly renaming two campus buildings that honor white supremacists who were instrumental in the school’s history. UR President Ronald A. Crutcher has announced that the university will not change the name of Ryland Hall, an academic building, one wing of which is named for the Rev. Robert Ryland.
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Impact of attending Million Man March 25 years ago still felt today
Twenty-five years ago on Oct. 16, 1995, an estimated 1 million African-American men from across the United States descended on the Washington Mall for the historic Million Man March.
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The Kamala Harris I saw in Africa, by Errin Haines
In many ways, Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to Africa in late March and early April was not unlike her stops in cities across the United States: She made a pitch to communities, touted an administration policy backed with funding, and reaffirmed the White House’s commitment to an issue while acknowledging the work left undone. But in every way, it was totally different.
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Whitney Houston, Notorious B.I.G. among inductees into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
In a normal year, the newly inducted Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class would have hit the stage to perform the well-known songs that made them famous and helped them enter the prestigious organization. Not in 2020.
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‘Scoop There It Is!’ Nicci Carr now a star for GEICO
“French vanilla, rocky road, chocolate, peanut butter, cookie dough. Scoop, there it is. Scoop, there it is. Shaka-laka-chaka-laka-chaka-laka.”
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Families plead for more information on missing loved ones
Richmonder Toni Jacobs wishes that her missing daughter could have gained the kind of national and social media exposure that the family of 22-year-old blonde Gabby Petito experienced.
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’Monumental Conversations:’ RPS launches new, free app offering insight into community feelings about Confederate statues that lined Monument Avenue
A new mobile app gives people the ability to hear the stories of the generational resistance of Black Richmonders to the Confederate statues on Monument Avenue that once stood as symbols of the white “Lost Cause” narrative.
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New book chronicles civil rights advocate Curtis W. Harris Sr.
Seeking racial justice, the late Hopewell minister and mayor walked the frontlines with Martin Luther King Jr.
Born in 1924 during the harsh racial segregation regime, the Rev. Curtis White Harris Sr. rose to become a key figure in the fight for Black equality in Virginia and the country.
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Cirque du Soleil to bring new show to Richmond
Entertainment giant Cirque du Soleil is just days away from premiering its newest creation, “TORUK – The First Flight,” a groundbreaking visual spectacle inspired by James Cameron’s award-winning 2009 motion picture “AVATAR.” “TORUK” is coming to the Richmond Coliseum Nov. 27 through 29, and will enthrall and engage local audiences with its integration of art and technology.
